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| Cheating should not be gendered. |
Gender Lenses
with Grace Chirumanzu
“There is no woman who knows where his man is. In fact, the only woman who knows where her husband is is a widow.” A colleague told me that when I had boasted that, “I trust my man” after a phone-call from him telling me he was already at home relaxed with the kids around 5pm on Friday.
So, they went on to claim that for as long as that man has got two legs don’t ever trust he is where he tells his partner he is. It was not the first time I have heard it. Besides the issue of patriarchy, this perception is what ‘encourages’ men to misbehave because their wives and society ‘expects’ that to be their masculine nature.
For the record, I don’t believe it is true of all men. There are still some good family men out there and yes, for the single sisters –your Mr Right exists. In fact, it should not be true of any man.
But why does the society tolerate men’s promiscuity and view women’s as shocking and unheard of?
In any patriarchal society, men tend to be accepted for going against the norm. If that misnomer persists, it becomes a gender aspect tagged with their sexuality with acceptance.
It is like a basic relationship between the powerful and the powerless Lawrence Simbarashe popularly known as Bonzo, will laugh his lungs out to any of the businessman Phillip Chiyangwa’s dry jokes and call him mdara even when he is younger than him, just for the obvious reasons. So, the society tends to justify and tolerate men’s bad behaviors because they are dominant.
Even the wife of a pastor –a man perceived to be God fearing and decent, will have her bubble burst if she claims that her husband is faithful. “Varume havarambirwe.” A famous shona statement used mostly among women to tell each other to leave a room for disappointment as men cannot be trusted 100% according to them.
Well, that is rubbish!
If you give someone a jacket, he will wear it. Some men are just fulfilling society’s expectations. Women run away from the temptations of cheating, they defy the tatty feminine jacket of promiscuity, because they know it is not expected of them by society.
Women do not have to endure marriages with cheating husbands in the hope that one day it will come to an end, believing ‘that’s what men do’ and women need to fight for their marriage. Yet a man is ready to send a cheating woman back to her family and file for a divorce with the encouragement of society.
I am a liberal feminist and this is not a campaign for society to adore women in the promiscuity jacket. That will be a classic misunderstanding of women empowerment.
The point is, the jacket should be viewed the same without any justification of whether one is male or female. It is stinking filthy!
Let us set the right expectations and people will behave like that. Men are loving, faithful and trustworthy partners.
